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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27090694">ring of thorns</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessionista/pseuds/Obsessionista'>Obsessionista</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Sword &amp; Shield | Pokemon Sword &amp; Shield Versions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Crush, Awkward Romance, Falling In Love, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Sexual Abuse, Ratings and more serious tags will mostly apply to latter chapters dw the first few will be tame, Recovery, Trauma, but I wanted to give a heads-up anyway</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 03:08:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,917</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27090694</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Obsessionista/pseuds/Obsessionista</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor's got a serious crush on Bede. After getting some encouragement, he finally dares to ask him out.</p><p>But he eventually comes to realize that dating Bede might not be as easy as he thought, as he uncovers the truth about a past relationship of his rival and what of an impact it had on the young boy and his view about love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beet | Bede/Masaru | Victor, Beet | Bede/Rose | Chairman Rose, Masaru | Victor &amp; Yuuri | Gloria, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ring of thorns</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i've been sitting on this fic idea for almost a year now and finally, FINALLY got around to writing the first chapter...... i know it's not perfect, didn't proofread/beta any of this and wrote most of it in the middle of the night but i wanted to get this started already lol. anyways! hope you'll enjoy.</p><p>first chapter is sfw, nothing here that needs a warning. it's just victor moping around a little. this fic will get dark eventually though, so beware!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was quiet in the Slumbering Weald. It always had a calm, lulling aura about it, fitting with its name, but today it was especially peaceful. Nothing was heard but the sound of birds and small Pokemon rustling through bushes, and a gentle breeze going through the leaves of the old trees that made up the forest. It came to no surprise then that even one of its guardians, Zacian, was going easy on watching over its territory, and instead was napping at a sunny spot near the lake at the center of the weald. </p><p>However, the wolf-like Pokemon lifted its head in alert when it heard a sound, one not unlike something hitting the surface of the water. But it calmed down went back to resting again as it made out the source of said sound.<br/>
On another spot at the edge of the lake, its trainer was sitting and tossing small stones into the lake every now and then. </p><p>It was a mundane activity, but to the boy, Victor, it meant a lot. He rarely had the time to relax, as he was always busy training or being dragged from one event to another ever since he became the champion, and usually never had a chance to sit down for a moment and collect his thoughts. On the contrary, he had a lot to think about when it came to it.<br/>
And so, he was using this opportunity to do just that.</p><p>He took a deep breath, and grabbed a nearby pebble, weighing it in his hand before throwing it into the water as he thought about the last few months.</p><p>They were busy, hectic months. But not unhappy months, strange at it was. He's met so many new people and Pokemon, and learned a lot about the ones he already knew before. He's learned about himself too. He learned more about where he wanted to go in life, learned more about what his own dreams meant. He saw what others would do to make their dreams come true, and saw what it would look like when someone's dream would die.</p><p>The image of Hop flashed in his mind at that last thought, and with it, he felt a stinging pain in his heart.</p><p>They both gave their best, and Victor was the one who came out on top in the end, just barely winning against his best friend and rival. It was all only fair. And yet, despite that and the fact that Hop seemed very enthusiastic about his new job at the lab in Wedgehurst and his dream about becoming a professor, he couldn't help but feel guilty. </p><p>He absentmindedly grabbed another stone, and winced as he felt it poke into his hand as he didn't notice how sharp this one was at the edges. He threw it across the lake immediately.</p><p>Returning to his train of thought, Marnie came to his mind. Another person where he felt like he took their dream away. Though for some reason, he felt less guilty about it than with Hop. Perhaps it was the fact that it would've been inevitable anyway for her to give up the dream of being a champ and becoming the Spikemuth gym leader instead. Piers' pestering surely wouldn't have stopped even if she won the tournament back then.</p><p>Victor grabbed the next stone near him. This one was surprisingly smooth to the touch, and he ran his fingers over it as his mind wandered.</p><p>Specifically, it wandered to another young, new gym leader. </p><p>Bede was surely the one whose dreams got crushed the hardest. Not only did he lose his chance at being a champ, but he didn't even make it up to the tournament, not legally at least, if one were to count his surprise appearance. The trust Chairman Rose had in him seemed gone too after the incident at the mural. And given what Bede's league card said about him having lived at an orphanage... with no family, would he even had any place to go afterwards, if it wasn't for Opal? These thoughts were often on Victor's mind, despite the fact that in this case, he barely even had anything to do with what happened to the white-haired boy. </p><p>And yet, he couldn't stop thinking about him. There was just something about the boy that always kept Victor's thoughts fixated on him. At first, he just thought it was due to how much the other boy's bratty attitude irritated him. Later, he thought it was out of concern over what happened to him. But now, he wasn't sure. He kept thinking of him so often, wondering what he might be doing at whichever moment, even though Victor technically knew that the answer was that Bede was probably just as busy with training as he was. </p><p>Images came once again to his mind. <em>Bede, crushing his opponents in the Ballonlea gym, with a confident smirk on his face. Bede, studying quietly, brows gently furrowed as he concentrated hard on reading a book on fairy Pokemon. Bede, taking a break during an exhausting training session, his face slightly red, flushed, with a shine of sweat on his skin, but still with that enthusiastic spark in his dark purple eyes. Bede, who- </em></p><p>"Victor!"</p><p>A voice rang out, snapping him out of his thoughts. He looked into the direction from where it came.</p><p>"Vic, where are you?!"</p><p>It was his sister Gloria, clearly looking for him from the sound and looks of it. He got up and walked over to her, and Zacian, also snapped out of its nap once again, followed him.</p><p>"Hey, sorry if I made you worry. I just... needed some time alone again." He said, and gave her an apologetic smile while rubbing at his neck.</p><p>She smiled back at him. "No problem, don't sweat it, I get it. Just wanted to look where you are. It's getting late after all, and you don't wanna miss out on dinner, right? I ordered us some pizza today!"</p><p>He nodded. "Right. Well, lead the way, sis!"</p><p>"Why should <em>I</em> lead? I thought you got the champ title from Leon, not the bad sense of direction." She said with a cheeky grin on her face. "Hah! Just kidding. Come on, let's go!"</p><p>As they walked through the weald to their home, Victor noticed he still held the stone he picked up. He took a closer look at it. It was a white, smooth, almost round stone. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but still pretty. He decided to pocket it.</p><p>A few minutes later, they arrived at their home in Postwick. Gloria grabbed some pizza from the kitchen before flopping down on the couch in the living room, and Victor followed her example. Zacian, still following the two, curled up on the floor.</p><p>The two ate in comfortable silence, before Gloria spoke up.</p><p>"So... I was thinking of doing a little get-together tomorrow with everyone. I mean, not <em>everyone</em> everyone, but you know. You, me, and then Hop, Bede and Marnie." She paused to bite into her slice of pizza, before speaking again. "I thought it would be a nice idea before we're all too busy again. You'd be up for it?"</p><p>"Sure, why wouldn't I be?" Victor said.</p><p>"Great. I already asked the others, and they're fine with it too, so now I only gotta think about where to go. Maybe one of the cafés in Hammerlocke or Motostoke... something at least a little romantic."</p><p>Victor raised an eyebrow. "Romantic? I thought you wanted to meet up with everyone, not go on a date."</p><p>Gloria, in return, rolled her eyes at him. "That's because <em>I</em> don't want to go on a date! But I thought <em>you</em> might want to take the chance to confess finally, and I just wanna help you."</p><p>"Confess? To whom? And what?" He said, and went to take another bite off his pizza.</p><p>"To Bede, of course," she replied "And that you've got a crush on him, obviously."</p><p>Her answer promptly caused Victor to choke on his bite of food, and he coughed for a good bit before he could stammer out a response.</p><p>"W-...what?"</p><p>She just shrugged. "It's true, isn't it? It's really obvious. Whenever the topic falls on him or even just Ballonlea, you're more alert than ever. You keep watching the news and check social media for it too. You probably think about him all the time. I bet that's what you were doing back at the lake too, right?"</p><p>Right.</p><p>It truly was so obvious. He had a crush on Bede, there was no denying it anymore. He zoned out to think about the other boy so often, and the feeling he got from thinking about him felt eerily similar to what he imagined it would feel like whenever people talked about having butterflies in their stomach. He could curse himself for not coming to this conclusion sooner, but perhaps it was because admitting this to himself also made him feel a little embarassed.</p><p>He sighed.</p><p>"...right."</p><p>Gloria smirked. "Heh, knew it. But hey, don't look so gloomy out of a sudden. It's fine! No one's gonna judge you for it. I won't, at least. And you know, I get the feeling he likes you too. He's so obsessed with you after all. I bet he's just bad at showing how he really feels..." she gave him a pat on the back "...and that's why you gotta make the first step."</p><p>"I... I guess..." He replied. She said it so easily. But just the thought of saying something like a simple 'I like you', let alone an 'I love you' to Bede made his heart beat a lot faster.</p><p>"Don't worry, I'll help you. I'm gonna pick a nice place, make sure everything's fine, and when the time comes, just give me a signal and I'll occupy the others so you two can have some alone-time and say how you really feel." She gave him an encouraging smile. "And what's the worst that could happen? Maybe rejection, sure, but like I said, I'm preeeeetty sure he's got some feelings for you too. He's not gonna cut you off for it, that's for sure."</p><p>Victor laughed nervously. "I hope so... but... you're right. It wouldn't hurt to try asking him out... I think."</p><p>"Now that's the spirit!" Gloria smiled at him again, before giving her attention to the rest of her pizza. Victor, on the other hand, felt too nervous now to even take another bite. He put the rest of his food down on the table and stood up.</p><p>"I... think I'll go to sleep early. It's probably a good idea to get some rest before... you know." He still couldn't even bring himself to say it, and quietly cursed himself for being so antsy even at the tought of it. His sister, in the middle of wolfing down the rest of their dinner, just gave him a quick "Mhm" in return.</p><p>He headed for his bedroom, and after changing clothes and sliding under the blankets, closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But sleep wouldn't come to him. Not that easily at least, as he lied awake for another good hour or so as his heart was still beating hard and fast and his head was once again full of thoughts about a certain white-haired boy.</p><p><em>I really hope Gloria's right,</em> was his last thought before he finally dozed off.</p>
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